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Actual text of McDonnell's 15 suggestions from '89 thesis
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Page 65 through McDonnell’s 15 specific proposals for Republican Party (1989 Thesis - The Republican Party's Vision for the Family):(For entire thesis - click here:
Republican policies must aim at the most destructive trend in family disintegration; the undermining of parental authority through parental abdication and government usurpation. Notwithstanding Democratic rhetoric to the contrary, it is not uncompassionate and anti-family to mandate parental consent for all decisions made my minors in and out of school, and to refuse government aid to families who reject the traditional values of family and accountability. While no government program can make people good, policies should reward people when they are, and not subsidize them when they are not. For example, every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals, or fornicators. The cost of sin should fall on the sinner, not the taxpayer. While such thinking may be attacked for lacking political realism in a changing world, it is imperative that government stand firm in support of traditional family values.
The real enemies of the traditional family – materialism, irresponsibility, feminism, lust, and ultimately selfishness – are largely outside the sphere of federal government impact. Republican have been wise not to advocate a comprehensive national family policy, as that would reduce to compulsion what is essentially voluntary. Government has the duty to provide the liberty and opportunity for family health and vitality, but is under no obligation to factually guarantee its success.
While obviously a difficult proposition, Republicans should adhere to the party’s foundational principles even if it is to their own political detriment. Subscribers to need-driven pragmatism should be challenged to make policy decisions reflecting their respect for family liberty. Among the specific family proposals that Republicans should pursue:
- Continue to work for passage of strong state anti-abortion laws, while, in the alternative, supporting a human life amendment statute.
- Make adherence to constitutional interpretivism, a covenant view of marriage and family, and a deep respect for parental authority, the first area of scrutiny in the selection of federal and state judges.
- Support a voluntary parental leave program by giving tax incentives for businesses that allow lengthy position-protected leaves.
- Continue to battle the interstate sale of pornography and obscenity to the extent constitutionally permissible, and encourage state republicans to do the same.
- Continue welfare reform to promote work and eliminate all anti-family provisions, with an ultimate goal of transferring social welfare responsibility to the private sector in local communities.
- If public benefits are to be paid, utilize the voucher system which maximizes freedom of choice for families and others in the area of housing, education, and medical care.
- Demonstrate a commitment to advocating the traditional family by using one-minute speeches, floor debates, extensions of remarks, committee testimony and press releases to imbue the public with the idea that traditional family is still normative.
- Fight any attempt to redefine family by allowing special rights for homosexuals or single-parent unwed mothers.
- Fight the use of federal funds for state sex-education programs or school-based health clinics giving abortion referrals, contraceptives, and family planning.
- Repeal inheritance tax.
- Reverse the no-fault divorce trend, by documenting for state legislators the pain for women and children when the covenant can be so easily discarded. The law is a tutor for the young, and no-fault undermines the importance of accountability and commitment.
- Use national, state, and community Republican organizations and resources to create viable networks of church, business, and government designed to solve family problems in the community.
- Show boldness at the state level by gradual weaning from the strings of the federal government, by rejecting conditional federal funds for family programs.
- Where practical, lobby strongly to pass legislation to remedy Supreme Court decisions which impair the preferred status of the intact family.
- Republicans must produce creative marketing to reach the average citizen with the pro-family message. The giftedness of the Republican philosophy is that it embraces the talents and worth of all peoples, while Democrats seek to shepard a nation of powerless incompetents. Republicans must spend research funds to understand voters views about themselves, the family, and Republican values. They should launch a comprehensive educational campaign to teach Republicans first, and then the nation, that what is good for the family is good for all America. Rather than spending the majority of effort and funds at election time when the public is inundated and desensitized to political messages, an ongoing teaching campaign in both the media and at the grass roots level should be engineered. If voters do not understand and accept Republican ideals before election time, television spots giving a candidates credentials and opponent weaknesses will not be as effective.
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